Private collection Izak (Isaac) Haim Prins.

This collection includes thousands of notes written by Isaac Prins, a large quantity of newspaper clippings and a lot of material on Dutch and Belgian Jews, topics in which Prins was very interested. One will find documents such as newspaper clippings, reports of activities, correspondence, notes, manuscripts and publications concerning the Jews in Belgium from the 16th century onwards, although most of the documentation pertains to the interwar years, the Second World War and post-war period. We find documents pertaining to onomastics, such as a telephone directory from Antwerp and the provinces of Limburg (1938) and Brabant (1938); material on language and folklore, notably many newspaper clippings on food; material on liturgy; material on the marranes, notably publications, newspaper clippings and manuscripts on this topic in the Netherlands and in Belgium; on Sephardic Jews in Brussels active in the textile and tobacco industries; on the discovery of a secret synagogue in Antwerp; ... Another section concerns Belgian-Jewish history, encompassing documents from the first decades of the 19th century, like the minutes of the Commission de l’École des pauvres Enfants israélites de Bruxelles (1822-1824), correspondence from the Communauté israélite de Bruxelles (1833-1872), publications and documents pertaining to and formed by the Central Consistory; donations; documents relating to Hartog Somerhausen; newspaper clippings; testimonies on Belgian-Jewish history; statistical data on the Jewish population in Belgium (ca. 1935); documents which served for the realization of Prins’ article on the Eastern European Jewish population in Brussels (1935); correspondence from the YIVO section in Belgium; reports and documents from various organisations dating from the interwar years; a list of Jews from the Netherlands living in Belgium (1935-1940), lists of Zionist associations and leaders in Brussels (1937-1940); documents emanating from the Keren Hayesod (1937-1941); documents from the Hashomer Hatzair (1945-1947) and from other youth organisations; pinkas of the Jewish community in Brussels (1938); Jewish theatre in Brussels and Ghent (1938-1939); lists of names and professional qualifications of Dutch Jews in Brussels (1940); documents produced by the Comité d’Assistance aux Réfugiés juifs (1940-1941); invitations, flyers and posters of Jewish events in Brussels (1940-1947); many newspaper clippings and notes used for writing the history of the Jews in Belgium in the 19th century; Jewish newspapers and publications; programme of the exhibition on Belgian-Jewish history and correspondence pertaining to this exhibit, ... In addition, this fonds contains a rich documentation on the Jews in the Netherlands, on the theme ‘Jews and chocolate’, family papers and correspondence, and personal documents.